Customized retail package

ABSTRACT

A customized package for marketing a prepaid service of converting a customer&#39;s photograph into an art work. The package includes product information sheets describing certain options of the art work and that are pre-selected for the particular retail establishment by cutting sections describing the desired options from more extensive printed sheets. The package also includes an order form customized to allow the customer to order those options that have been selected in accordance with the enclosed information sheets. A glassine envelope is included for the customer to enclose the photograph and a pencil may also be included within the glassine envelope. A self-addressed envelope is included to enable the customer to send the ordering components to the art work supplier. Finally the package is fully enclosed in a transparent plastic outer envelope to enable the contents of the package to be displayed to a customer.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a customized package for retail salesand, more particularly, to a customized package for use in providing aprepaid service to a customer relating to the use of a customerphotograph to create a work of art.

There are certainly numerous sales packages that are provided to aconsumer in order to market certain products and services. One of suchsales packages is used in connection with the marketing of a work of artthat is created by the artist based upon a photograph that is submittedby the customer.

In that business, the art work supplier provides a package to retailersso that the packages are displayed to be seen and purchased by thecustomer. With the purchase, the customer obtains a prepaid right to theservices of the supplier and, as a part of the transaction, the customerselects from its own personal collection a particular photograph orphotographs to be sent to the art work supplier for use in creating theart work.

As can be seen, therefore, the package must contain sufficientinformation for the customer to complete the transaction including theforwarding of the customer's chosen photograph to the art work supplier.Accordingly, the package must contain product information sheets thatset forth the various options available to the customer, an order formthat the customer can use to select the desired options explained in theproduct information sheets as well as a preprinted mailing envelope thatthe customer can use to safely transmit the photograph to the art worksupplier.

As such, a problem exists in that each retailer may want a differentselection of options for its customers, that is, one retailer may wantdifferent options for its customers than another retailer. It would,therefore, be advantageous to supply a different package for eachretailer so that the package for any one retailer conforms to thedesires of that retailer.

Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a customized retailpackage for the business as well as a system that facilitates theassembling of a customized retail package.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a customized retail package for use inthe business of selling prepaid services to create a work of art basedon a customer supplied photograph.

The retail package enables the customer to review all of the availableoptions for the art work and to fill out an order form indicating thosedesired options and return the order form along with a photograph thatis desired to be converted into the art work.

To do so and to minimize the cost of printing, there is at least one,and preferably a plurality of, descriptive printed product informationsheets that list and describe the options available to the customer inconverting the photograph into an art work. To minimize the printingcost, the product information sheets are initially printed having all ofthe options described with indicia, such as delineation lines, thatseparate the product information sheets into individual sections witheach section describing a particular option.

As such, if the retailer wants only certain options to be available toits customers, the art work supplier can customize that package bysimply cutting along the delineation lines in order to separate out thesections describing the options desired by that retailer and only thosesections included in the retail package; the other sections not offeredto those customers being discarded. Thus, there is no need to printspecialized product information sheets for each retailer since the sameprinted product information sheets are used but customized for eachretailer.

The retail package includes an order form that is customized to providea selection of only the product information sheets illustrating optionsthat have been selected for inclusion in the package. Since only certainproduct information sheets have been included in the package, the orderform is printed so as to list only those available to that customer andnot those options that have not been offered to the customer. The orderform also has a cut off portion to be retained by the customer as arecord of the order and both the customer portion and the art worksupplier portion has an identification number for use in identifyingthat order.

A glassine envelope is also included in the retail package and which isused by the customer to enclose a photograph that the customer wantsconverted to a work of art. The use of glassine material for theenvelope allows the customer to write on the envelope without damagingthe photograph contained therein and there can be a pencil provided forthat purpose contained within the glassine envelope.

A self-addressed mailing envelope is included in the package for use bythe customer in sending the order form along with the glassine envelopecontaining the photograph to the art work supplier.

Finally, all of the contents of the package are contained within atransparent outer envelope that can be displayed at the retail locationto serve as an attraction to the prospective customer.

These and other features and advantages of the present invention willbecome more readily apparent during the following detailed descriptiontaken in conjunction with the drawings herein.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a representation of a product information sheet showingcustomer options available to the customer;

FIG. 2 is a front view of an order form for use by a customer inordering options.

FIG. 3 is a glassine envelope used with the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a self-addressed mailing envelope used with the presentinvention; and

FIG. 5 is an outer flexible envelope for enclosing the items of thepresent invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Referring now to FIG. 1, there is shown a front view of a productinformation sheet 10 used with the present invention. There may be, andnormally will be, a plurality of product information sheets 10 and whichare printed sheets that provide information as to the various optionsthat the customer may select in obtaining the final art product from thesupplier. As such, there is an indicia in the form of a delineation line12 that is printed on the product information sheet 10 and which dividesthe product information sheet 10 into sections 14, 16. Each of thesections 14, 16 illustrates and describes an alternative option providedto the customer and such options can include, among others, personalizedinscriptions, touch-up service, upgrades, types of canvas and frameselection.

Accordingly, the art work supplier can customize the options provided tothe customer easily and inexpensively by determining the particularoptions that are desired to be available to the customer and then cutalong the line 12 to create sections of the information sheets 10 so asto retain those sections having the desired options and separating outthe sections having the unwanted options. By that method, the suppliercan have all of the product information sheets 10 include all of theavailable options so that the information sheets can be printeduniformly and not specially printed for specific cases.

When the final package is assembled, however, as will later beexplained, the supplier can simply select the desired options for theparticular package and then cut out the sections that are applicable andinclude those sections in the final package that describe the desiredoptions.

By this means, the options can be customized for that particular retaillocation without the need and expense to print individual productinformation sheets for each retailer. As an example, a retailer may wantonly certain options contained and offered within the retail packageprovided by that retailer and the art work supplier can simply cut theuniformly printed product information sheets along the line 12 to selectonly the applicable sections illustrating the options desired by thatretailer. As such, all of the information sheets 10 can be printeduniformly but easily converted into individual customized packages foreach retailer.

As can therefore be seen, by the use of multiple information sheets 10,a good number of options can be explained and offered to the customerand yet each package can be easily and inexpensively customized to onlyinclude the desired options.

Turning now to FIG. 2, there is shown a front view of a order form 18that is enclosed within the overall retail package and which has a foldline 20 that can be torn or cut apart to provide a customer part 22 andan art work supplier part 24. As suggested, the customer retains thecustomer part 22 as a record of making the order and the art worksupplier part 24 is mailed to the art work supplier. An identificationnumber 26 is printed on each order form 18 and is located on both thecustomer part 22 and the art work supplier part 24 for use by thecustomer to identify the order to the art work supplier, if there is aneed to do so, and for the art work supplier to track the progress ofthe order.

Along with the normal ordering information as to the identity of thecustomer, the order form lists the various options 28 that are availableto the customer for ordering the art work. Since the order form 18 canbe laser printed, each order form 18 can be customized in accordancewith the information sheets 10 that are included in the package, thatis, the order form 18 can specifically list only the options that havebeen selected as desired and provided in the retail package and not theoptions that were originally a part of the information sheets 10 andseparated out as not applicable to the particular customer base.

Therefore, both the order form 18 and the product information sheets 10are both customized for the individual package provided to the customer.

Turning next to FIG. 3, there is shown a front view of a glassineenvelope 30 that is a part of the overall package and the glassineenvelope 30 is provided for the customer to insert the particularphotograph that the customer desires to be converted into an art work.The use of the glassine material allows the user to write on theexterior of the glassine envelope 30 without damaging the photograph andthere may also be a pencil 32 enclosed within the glassine envelope 30for the convenience of the customer.

Turning next to FIG. 4, there is a front view of a mailing envelope 34that is also included within the retail package and which is used by thecustomer to forward all of the necessary materials to the supplier ofthe art work. The mailing envelope 34 can be a standard brown heavypaper envelope and there is a preprinted address 36 designating thelocation of the art work supplier on the mailing envelope 34. As such,the customer can forward the glassine envelope 30 containing theparticular photograph as well as the order form 18 in the mailingenvelope 34 to the supplier of the art work. There is preferably a heavysheet of material, such as cardboard within the mailing envelope 30 toprotect the photograph from damage during the mailing process.

Finally, turning to FIG. 5, there is a flexible plastic transparentouter envelope 38 that encloses all of the aforedescribed components andwhich can therefore be used not only to encase and secure all of thosecomponents in one package, but also can serve to display the informationtherein at the retail establishment in order to induce customers topurchase the prepaid service.

As can now be seen, using FIGS. 1-5, the retail package of the presentinvention has certain components that combine to make the package of thepresent invention a customized package for each retail location. Thus,there is contained within the outer envelope 38, at least one productinformation sheet 10 that describes various options available to thecustomers and which is customized to the particular retailestablishment, an order form 18 that is customized in accordance withthe particular selected options described in the product informationsheet or sheets, a glassine envelope 30 to facilitate the customersending in a photograph to the art work supplier and a mailing envelope34 that is self-addressed to enable the customer to mail certain itemsback to the art work supplier. The customer thus has information on theavailable options for the art work and can select those desired optionson the order form and cut or tear off a portion of the order form to beretained for the customer's own record.

The order form 18 and the glassine envelope 30 containing the customer'sphotograph are placed into the mailing envelope 34 to be mailed to theart work supplier. Thus, each package is individually customized with aminimum of printing costs and yet the overall package contains all ofthe product option information and ordering document necessary for thecustomer to send in a completed order to the art work supplier.

Those skilled in the art will readily recognize numerous adaptations andmodifications which can be made to the customized package and system ofthe present invention which will result in an improved retail package,yet all of which will fall within the scope and spirit of the presentinvention as defined in the following claims. Accordingly, the inventionis to be limited only by the following claims and their equivalents.

1. A customized package to enable a customer to order an art paintingfrom an art work supplier based upon a photograph, the packagecomprising an flexible outer envelope containing at least one productinformation sheet illustrating certain options of the art painting, aglassine envelope for enclosing a photograph supplied by a customer, anorder form having a listing of order entries for selecting the optionsdescribed in the at least one product information sheet, and aself-addressed mailing envelope for returning certain components of thepackage to an art work supplier.
 2. The package of claim 1 wherein theorder form that is separable into a customer part retained by thecustomer and a supplier part to be returned to the art work supplier. 3.The package of claim 2 wherein the customer part and the supplier partboth have a common identification number printed thereon.
 4. The packageof claim 1 wherein the self-addressed envelope is dimensioned to containthe order form and the glassine envelope.
 5. The package of claim 1wherein the self-addressed envelope contains a cardboard backing toprotect the contents from damage during the mailing process.
 6. Thepackage of claim 1 wherein the at least one product information sheetcomprises a plurality of product information sheets.
 7. The package ofclaim 1 wherein the package includes a pencil for writing on theglassine envelope.
 8. A method of assembling a customized order packagefor supplying an art work based on a customer supplied photograph, themethod comprising the steps of: providing at least one productinformation sheet having different customer options printed thereon;cutting the at least one product information sheet into separatesections having different customer options printed thereon; selectingthe sections having the desired options printed thereon; printing aorder form listing the selected customer options; providing a preprintedself addressed outer mailing envelope; providing a glassine bag; andenclosing the sections of the at least one product information sheet,the order form, the preprinted outer mailing envelope and the glassineenvelope into a flexible outer envelope.
 9. The method of claim 8wherein the step of providing at least one product information sheethaving different customer options comprises providing at least one sheethaving a delineation line separating the at least one productinformation sheet into sections having different options printedthereon.
 10. The method of claim 9 wherein the step of providing atleast one product information sheet comprises providing a plurality ofproduct information sheets.
 11. The method of claim 8 wherein the stepof cutting the at least one product information sheet comprises cuttingalong the delineation line to separate the product information sheetinto separate sections.
 12. The method of claim 8 further including thestep of enclosing a pencil into the customized order package.
 13. Themethod of claim 8 further including the step of including and enclosinga cardboard backing into the flexible outer envelope.
 14. The method ofclaim 8 further including the step of including and enclosing a pencilinto the flexible outer envelope.